With increasing fuel costs and the implementation of government regulations concerning fuel economy, consumers are closely monitoring the fuel economy of vehicles not only at the time of purchase, but during the life of the vehicle. To this end, vehicle electronics continually calculate the lifetime fuel economy of a vehicle using an accumulated value for the amount of fuel used over the life of the vehicle divided by the miles the vehicle has driven. The amount of lifetime fuel used is typically stored in a vehicle control module such as a vehicle telematics unit. However, if the vehicle control module storing the accumulated fuel used is replaced, that value is lost and the lifetime fuel used is reset to zero. Consequently, the lifetime fuel economy calculation using the new vehicle control module fails to account for all of the fuel used prior to the hardware replacement and does not accurately reflect the true lifetime fuel economy for that particular vehicle.